Protocol Feature Identification and Removal

Protocols used for communication suffer bloat from a variety of sources, such as support for legacy features or rarely used (and unnecessary) functionality. Traditionally, the Navy subscribes to a blanket adoption of a standard protocol "as is". Unnecessary features are active and can be accessed by both internal and external systems creating security vulnerabilities. PJR Corporation's (PJR's) Phase II STTR Proposal, in partnership with the University of Florida (UF), seeks to automatically customize or subset the protocols to allow only necessary functionality. PJR and UF intend to reverse the trend toward onesize-fits-all protocols by enabling end users to selectively remove features they do not use or want. Examples of protocol features could include support for legacy functionality or a feature that is made unnecessary by a feature in another layer. The primary objectives of the proposed work is to research, validate, test, and demonstrate approaches to resolving challenges to automatically identify and remove targeted features from common protocols. UF will research the application of machine learning to protocol feature analysis and discovery, as well as mapping required features to binary/source methods. PJR will research and evaluate approaches to automate the process of safely remove or disable features within protocols.